CHR asks Ombudsman to probe Tondo secret detention cell
A secret room where detainees are held at Manila Police Station 1 in Tondo. (File photo by RAFFY LERMA / Philippine Daily Inquirer)
Alleged drug offenders were detained at a “closet-sized cell” in the Raxabago Police Station (Police Station 1) of the Manila Police District (MPD) for days with only one ceiling fan and one male urinal, forcing them to defecate in plastic bags.
This was the dire picture of detainees in the Tondo police station presented by the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) in asking the Office of the Ombudsman to investigate the detention of 12 suspects at a secret detention cell.
The secret cell exposed the squalid conditions for Tondo’s 12 detainees in the administration’s intensified campaign against drugs.
READ: Inside secret cell: ‘You’re like pigs’
In a letter to Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales, Commissioner Karen Gomez-Dumpit said the CHR found “sufficient cause” for the anti-graft office to investigate Supt. Robert Domingo, then the chief of the station, and all police officers under him for arbitrary detention, grave threats, grave coercion and robbery and extortion, all violations of the Revised Penal Code.
The CHR also urged the ombudsman to investigate the MPD for torture punishable under the Anti-Torture Act and the Revised Penal Code for alleged maltreatment of prisoners.
The commission said it discovered that the 12 detainees were locked up in a one by 5-meter “closet-sized” cell, which was actually just a hole in the wall of the station’s Drug Enforcement Unit covered with an open shelf.
The cell dfd not have light and windows, with one ceiling fan and only one male urinal, forcing the 12 detainees – three of whom are women – to defecate in plastic bags, the CHR said.
The detainees also slept in a sitting position due to lack of space and beds.
Some said they had not eaten for days, while others said they were beaten and electrocuted with a taser, the CHR added.
The names of the detainees were also not found in the police logbook, although the police have said they have been arrested for drug offenses, CHR said.
Other detainees have complained they were arrested without any probable cause or warrant, the CHR said.
The CHR swaid that detainees were rounded up and extorted by the police for their release.
“The detainees allege that some police officers extorted money from them in exchange for their release, and that their families were not allowed entry into the cell,” the CHR said.
“In sum, the CHR believes that there is sufficient cause for the Ombudsman to investigate PSupt. Robert Domingo and all Philippine National Police (PNP) personnel of MPD-Raxabago Police Station 1 involved in the matter for violations of the (aforementioned) provisions of law,” the CHR added.
The CHR also recommended the Ombudsman to dismiss the police officials for the administrative offenses as well as for violations of the revised PNP operational procedures.
In a statement, CHR Commissioner Dumpit said the CHR was now turning over to the Ombudsman its findings on the secret cell for its appropriation action and investigation.
Dumpit said Tondo police’s secret cell exposed “the most shocking and dehumanizing violations of detained persons in the Philippines to date.”
“We are confident that the investigation of this matter will result in the finding of probable cause to charge the Manila Police District personnel involved with violations of all relevant penal provisions under existing law, as well as administrative liabilities for their violations of police operational procedures and international human rights standards,” Dumpit said.
Dumpit urged the media to keep an eye on the situation of the “Raxabago 12.”
Dumpit also expressed hope that the PNP would participate in the Ombudsman’s probe to live up to its motto “to serve and protect,” and for PNP chief Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa to clean his ranks of scalawag cops.
Dela Rosa had backed his beleaguered cops over the controversy, noting that some detainees even lied to the CHR when they alleged that the cops tortured them. The police chief even said there was nothing wrong with the secret cell as long as the detainees were not tortured or extorted by the police. /atm
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